The UN Gives an Award Named After a Murdered Man to One of His Murderer's Best Friends

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
14 March '10

If you want a good example of the ridiculous, shameful ironies in the terrible era we're living in here it is. The UN-Habitat organization, part of the United Nations, has initiated a Rafik Hariri Memorial Award. The award is named after the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated by Syria in February 2005.

The first winner is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Of course, Erdogan is an Islamist who is an ally of Syria, the murderer of Hariri.

Why did Erdogan get the $200,000 award? According to the announcement, the reason is that he organized the first conference of mayors that led to the creation of a worldwide organization of mayors, thus creating another round of meetings so that the budgets of cities can be spent on plane fare and luxury hotels for mayors to travel around the world. How’s that for making the lives of urban people better?

Apparently, the fact that Erdogan is closely cooperating with the people who killed Hariri, after whom the award was named, did not strike the panel as ironic.

(Read full post)
.